The Purloined Heroes
by Rdr2
Summary: When the World’s Finest go missing, it is up to the Teen Titans to figure out who stole them. Based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story. COMPLETE
1. Chapter One

_When the World's Finest go missing, it is up to the Teen Titans to figure out who stole them. Based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story. COMPLETE_

**Chapter One: Work and Play**

The figure was tall. The figure was menacing. The figure had eyes full of intelligence, yet radiated an aura of purest and righteous rage. The figure surveyed the ruin around him: the stalactites crumbled upon the shattered ground, the sparking of electronics, the hissing of gas mains, the roar of hellfire. The figure looked upon it all. And scowled.

The lair of the Batman was aflame.

The figure flipped his tattered, bloodstained cape over his shoulder, ignored the arc of agony coursing through his collapsed shoulder blades. He ignored the red liquid flowing from gaping wounds, the crackling sound of charred flesh flaking away…the labored breathing of the old man in his arms.

"Alfred…." the Batman moaned sadly. He didn't know who had done it. He didn't know how. But this new enigmatic foe had conquered the Batman.

He moved sluggishly—dying by inches, life measured in minutes—toward the one communication terminal still undamaged. He laid Alfred's battered body against a stalagmite, careful not to jar any broken bones in the frail Englishman. Then he slapped a button marked "recording."

"Computer," he groaned, pausing to cough up a gob of blood. "Send a coded message to the Justice League …new…enemy," Batman stopped, for his well-trained senses—uncannily fine even in his wounded state—heard the subtle movement of gravel behind him.

He spun to face his foe, the one who destroyed the Batcave and the Batman. And he gasped in recognition.

Then blackness.

* * *

Beast Boy was sweating bullets. The tension was on. This was the big moment. The final battle. He assumed a fighting stance, purely aggressive, purely a warrior. He would _not_ lose. And he made his move…. 

Across the Teen Titan's massive, wall-sized TV screen flashed the words, "Astaroth Wins."

Beast Boy's mouth dropped in abject shock even as Cyborg whooped and guffawed in ecstasy. "Schooled you, B.B.!" the machine-man gloated merrily. "No one—and I mean _no one_—beats Astaroth when I'm at the controls. Ha, ha!" He punched the air in victory.

"No way you could have did that counter," the green-furred Titan argued.

"You just saw it, dude!" Cyborg countered. "I win! That's two weeks chores you owe me. Boo yah!"

Starfire, floating behind the couch the two gamers were sitting on, rested her elbows along one of the cushions and asked, "The concept of gambling is quite familiar to me, but I didn't know Earth cultures condoned it so…flagrantly."

Raven, sitting on the farthest and loneliest end of the couch, looked up from her book and dryly commented, "They don't. Those two are just being immature. And loud."

The Tamaranian girl floated over to the dark-haired magus and peeked at the book title. It was a most curious tome, leather-bound and very, very old. "The…'Purloined Letter and Other Stories?' What is…purloined? Is that a manner of cooking?"

Raven closed the book and briefly considered simply leaving the bubbly girl's company. She didn't particularly like people asking her questions when she was reading. Reading was a way to relax, to clear the mind by filling it. Interruptions in such exercises were…trying, even for one of Raven's discipline. Yet, Raven decided to indulge the girl's curiosity, if only to educate her.

The magus raised the book and pointed at the title. "Purloined means to steal. It's an antiquated word, so no wonder you haven't heard it before." Raven was well aware that Starfire's grasp of the English tongue was based mostly on highly formalized modern grammar and the occasional street slang. "'The Purloined Letter' is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, a writer of the nineteenth century, who was known for his dark poetry. But his short stories were also very highly-regarded, especially 'The Purloined Letter.'"

The door to the living room slid open with a hiss and Robin walked in. He had apparently heard Raven talking about the book, for he said, "It's the first true detective story and it redefined the mystery genre. It's now a regular in college anthologies and high school curriculums all over the world."

Starfire's expression was one of amazement and she regarded the book with newfound respect. "It must have been a milestone in your literature," she said. "My people regard the arts very highly. I must read this story some day, if I may." She looked pleadingly at Raven, who allowed a small smile to curl his small lips. The dark-haired magus nodded her assent.

Then Raven turned to Robin, tilting her head curiously. "I didn't know you read Poe."

The masked youth shrugged. "Batman's butler read it to him when he was just a boy and tried to teach him the impact Poe had on fiction and literature in general. Batman made me read it when I first started working with him. I guess all good detectives have to read it eventually."

Raven looked at him with an even more curious expression. Her haunting eyes tried to bore a hole into him. Though surprised at the sudden shift, Robin didn't let his uneasiness show. His face was a guarded mask, set and smooth. Raven asked, "You don't read for fun, do you?"

When Robin replied, it was low, with a hardened edge. "Not in the slightest. I read for work." The flinty demeanor faded away in an instant when he said in a louder voice, "By the way, guys—good news. I cracked that downtown bomber case. I already sent the culprit's name and description to the authorities. They've got enough on him to send him away for five to twenty."

Cyborg whooped again and Beast Boy shouted, "All right!"

Starfire clapped her hands, saying, "How wonderful. Now the shopping district is safe again. Now it won't explode anymore!"

Raven, as her wont, said nothing. But she was still giving Robin that strange look. Theyoung detectiveignored it and went to a computer terminal along the wall. His fingers danced across the keys.

Over the past month, he and the Titans had stopped several smalltime gangs, halted a major robbery, and, now, divined the identity of a mysterious downtown bomber. The Titans did the methodical detective work, ran the punishing chases, and fought the adrenaline-pumping fistfights. But once a case was solved, they always took the time to relax. Beast Boy and Cyborg had their games, Raven her books, Starfire her desire to learn about Earth…the Titans were always eager to put aside their responsibilities as heroes and just cool down.

All except one.

Not five minutes after solving a case, Robin was once again looking for a new mystery to crack. The Titan database and crime alarm systems were very sophisticated—they were assured to be, because it was Robin who built them, programmed them, and set them up. His remote eyes and ears were everywhere in the city, over the city, under the city. They were always scanning for a new evildoer, a new crime or theft, a new villain.

Raven regarded her leader with worry, though she hid it well behind her stony features. Over the months that the Titans had worked together, she had noticed Robin's obsession with crimefighting. To put it bluntly, the Boy Wonder was a workaholic. He was good at what he did, but he rarely rested. The times Raven had seen him playing a video game with Beast Boy or Cyborg had dwindled rapidly in recent months. He rarely left his study, where she knew he poured over case files and clues.

She wondered when he last slept.

But it was not her place to judge him or his methods. He was a skilled leader—a great leader. He was quick on his feet and quick of wits. He was a detective and a strategist. Those few times he had been deprived of his utility belt were times that Raven had witnessed his remarkable resourcefulness. Though not blessed with superpowers, he had outfought those who were more times than anyone could count. Indeed, of all the Teen Titans, Robin seemed the most likely to be unbeatable.

But knowing that didn't make her worry abate. Robin left the living room to shut himself in his study again. Sighing, Raven buried her nose in her book. The words danced across the pages like little imps. They wouldn't make sense. She growled in frustration and slammed the tome shut, drawing a surprised squeal from Starfire. The dark-haired magus ignored the Tamaranian and walked out of the room in silence.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two: No Time to Relax**

Robin sat in his chair and sighed, rubbing his eyes. Nothing had come up in the scanners. Not a single crime, not a single disturbance. It was going to be a quiet afternoon. He should be happy about that, but he felt…restless. "Must be something wrong with me," he muttered. "A drink. I'll feel better after a drink."

He stood up and went a small refrigerator in the corner and retrieved a bottle of syrupy, viscous liquid. He frowned at it but removed the stopper, pouring the drink into a nearby mug. As he was taking a sip, he heard the knock on his door and said brusquely, "Enter, Raven."

The door slid open. "How'd you know it was me?" the mage asked.

"I heard your footsteps," Robin answered matter-of-factly.

"You must have very good ears," Raven commented. "But that's hardly enough to tell you who was outside your door."

"Beast Boy tends to move at a hustle, so his feet have a scraping sound to them. Cyborg is heavy-footed. Starfire rarely walks, since she prefers to fly, and her flying powers leave a small wake that can be heard. Your step is very distinctive because of your soft-soled shoes. I should know." He smiled sardonically. "I used to wear them. 'Pixie boots,' a friend of mine called them. Hated it."

Raven shook her head, amazed at his deductive skills. But then again, she mused, he _was_ trained by the best. "So you hate my boots?"

Robin smiled cavalierly. "Nope. You make them look good." As if hearing his own words and their implication, he faltered and said hastily, "I didn't mean it the way it sounded. I meant I made them look real bad." Suddenly, he stopped looking like a distant, overworked superhero. Now he was just a flustered teenage boy. The contrast was startling to Raven. She shook her head again, still amazed, but now for different reasons.

Then Robin regained his composure. The detective came back. "What did you want, Raven?"

She spoke truthfully, without bandying words. "I'm concerned." She padded over, planting her hands on his desk, and leaned forward to accentuate the import of her words. "You're working too much, Robin. You're overextending yourself, and it worries me. The others haven't noticed yet, though I think Starfire might have an inkling. She cares about you." Robin made no comment.

Finally, the young detective said, "I don't think you should waste your time worrying about me, Raven."

Raven cut in sharply, "As leader, you can tell me what to do in a fight. You can tell me who to save and who to support. But don't think for a minute who can tell me what to think, Boy Wonder." She stood right up to him and poked him hard in the chest. He probably didn't feel it. The red vest he wore was made of Kevlar. Her finger hurt from poking him. But Raven pressed on, "You know what I think? I think you're getting too involved in this—in being a hero, in being a detective. Settle down, Robin. You need to relax. If you work yourself to death arresting every third-tier burglar, you're going to trip up. Not even the Batman can keep up a pace like this forever."

Robin's jaw seemed to lock up; he was grinding his teeth. "You'd be surprised at the paces Batman can keep. And you'd be surprised at the ones I can keep."

"You're missing the point."

"Raven, thanks for caring, but you don't need to worry. I'm fine and I have it in control. This is what I've been trained to do—what I've been doing all my life. I'm good at it."

The magus sighed. "I know you are, Robin. Just…take it easy, okay? If for no other reason than because you'd be tired. And a tried crimefighter isn't a help to anyone."

Robin suddenly rested a friendly, companionable hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Thanks. I'm sorry I got a bit snappish. Look, I have…well…I guess not work, but some relaxing to do."

"Sure," Raven said with a small smile. She left his room and when the door slid shut, she leaned back against it. She was still worried, but at least she had said her piece.

Her musings were interrupted by the blare of the crime alarm. Raven mentally cursed the device. "He's supposed to be getting rest, you inconsiderate pile of wires," she growled, rushing to the living room and knowing that Robin would only be seconds behind her.

She entered the living room, looking up at the wall-sized TV screen. A white-haired man with a bold chin, strong moustache, and glasses was displayed on it. Raven recognized him from photos: Commissioner James Gordon of Gotham City Police.

"Teen Titans," the commissioner said, worry lacing his every word, "I need to get in contact with Robin. It's urgent."

"He's in his room," Beast Boy answered, "but he should be coming out, what with the alarm going off like crazy."

"So you're Commissioner Gordon?" Starfire asked. "We heard a lot about you."

"We can go through the pleasantries later," he said.

"Indeed we can." Everyone's attention turned to Robin, who had just entered. "What's going on, commissioner?" He spoke so confidently, acted so in control. No one would have suspected that he was running himself ragged. Always such remarkable discipline, Raven mused dryly.

"It's bad, Robin," the man on the screen said ominously. "I just received intel from the Justice League's mainframe computer. Batman and the Justice League have disappeared. According to their mainframe, the League was staging a rescue operation—Batman was apparently gravely injured. We've received no word from anyone since." The Titans listened in growing horror. They knew the implications: what force on Earth could have taken out _all_ of the Justice League? "And that's not all," Gordon continued, "This was placed in my office a few hours ago, mailed to me under instructions from the Justice League computer."

A note appeared on the screen. It read, "Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste. They are to be found in Crebillon's _Atree_."

Raven's eyes widened in recognition, but Robin recognized them faster. "Those are the last lines of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Purloined Letter.' Commissioner, where did you find this note?"

"On the mantelpiece in my office. There were instructions to put it there upon delivery."

Robin nodded, as if expecting that answer. "I'm sorry that you had to be the bearer of bad news, commissioner. Robin out." He abruptly shut off communications. To the Titans, he announced, "Let's get moving, people. We have work to do." Raven thought he was looking directly at her when he said that.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three: On the Case**

"What's going on, Robin?" Beast Boy asked.

"Something very serious," Robin answered grimly.

"I _know_ that already!" the green-furred Titan said. "But should we really be sticking our heads into this? The Justice League is the best around, and someone's taken them out. You don't just go into that half-cocked, dude."

"I'm not going in half-cocked." Robin turned to look at his friends. "Look, this is a detective story in the making. That means we have to look for clues. We already got a few. That quote? It's the last lines of 'The Purloined Letter.'"

"You said that," Cyborg said. "So what?"

"Think about it," Robin said. "It might be his M.O. In the story, the detective, who knew the location of the purloined letter, made a copy of the letter. He wrote that quote in that letter. Then he went to the mantelpiece—where the letter was hidden—and swapped it with the fake latter."

Raven nodded in understanding, having read the story. "The purloined letter was 'hidden' from everyone's eyes because it was in plain sight," she said. "No one bothered to check what was right in front of them."

Robin nodded. "That was the climax—and the whole point—of the story. But Gordon _did_ find the note. It was given to him.It can't be that easy."

"So what other leads do you have?" Starfire asked.

"Only that I know French," the young detective replied. "'Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste' means 'So baleful a scheme, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes.' This was the detective's last words to the thief who purloined the letter. It was something of a teaser, a way to poke at the thief's pride."

Beast Boy scratched his head. "I don't get it."

Robin elucidated. "The quote is drawn from Crebillon's poem, _Atree et Thyeste_—the _Atreus and Thyestes_. The poem told the Greek myth of Atreus, a king, whose wife had been seduced by his bother, Thyestes. In retribution, Atreus killed Thyestes' sons, cooked them, and served them to his brother, who consumed them. It's a classic revenge story, where a crime can be forgiven if it pays for another crime. The detective in 'The Purloined Letter' wanted to imply that his theft of the letter was a matter of revenge, and thus, not as punishable as the real thief's crime of taking the letter in the first place."

Beast Boy looked flabbergasted. Robin sighed and explained in easier terms, "Basically, the detective in the story wanted to send a clever message to the thief: I can steal from you because I'm doing it out of justice. You stole out of selfishness, so you must be punished."

"In other words," Starfire said, "there was a double meaning in it."

"Precisely."

Raven said, "Which means that whoever attacked Batman and the Justice League has two motives for doing so."

Robin nodded. "So we have to figure out what those are. Come on. We're heading to Gotham."

* * *

The flight to Gotham was a relatively long one: two hours. Long enough for Beast Boy to get bored and long enough for Cyborg to get annoyed at Beast Boy. It was long enough for Robin to start organizing his thoughts…and the clues. 

"The Purloined Letter"—it was a story he hadn't read it years, but he recalled it so vividly. In the story, the Prefect of Paris had searched high and low for the letter, but couldn't find it in any nick or cranny. But an outsider, a detective, found it almost instantly, just because he looked in the most obvious spot: the mantelpiece, where the letter was disguised as a common note.

His musings allowed him to shut out all the commotion on the flight, to such a degree that when Raven touched his arm, he jumped up in surprise.

"It's not very often that anyone can sneak up on you," Raven noted wryly. She sat down next to him. "Lost in thought?"

Robin smiled crookedly, sheepishly. "Sorry. I was distracted. I was just trying to tease out more from the note Gordon found, but I'm not coming up with anything that we haven't talked about already."

"Perhaps you should tell me what you're thinking," the magus offered. "I'm no detective, but at the very least, I can be a soundboard. You'd hear yourself and maybe you'd see a new angle you hadn't thought about before. And it never hurts to have another person's perspective."

"You're right."

"I'm all ears, Robin."

Robin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I already figured out that Gordon is supposed to be the clueless Prefect of Paris and that the note he found in his office was supposed to be a taunt, just like in the story. But the difference is that the taunt was directed at the thief; now it's clearly being used as a lure. I'm thinking the culprit wants us to walk into a trap.

"The fact that the culprit is using only part of the story to dictate his actions speaks volumes about his thinking. It means he doesn't strictly abide by Poe's story-line, which in turn means that we can't rely on the story to predict his next move. But perhaps we'll find some answers in Gotham. If Batman and the Justice League have been defeated, there had to be some physical evidence—you don't just take out a whole platoon of superheroes and not leave some collateral damage, after all."

Raven nodded, understanding his line of thinking. "So you're going to try and dig up more clues at the battlefield of their defeat," she reasoned.

"That's the intent," confirmed Robin. "But first I'd like to pick up some gear at the Batcave. My investigative equipment isn't as up to speed as Batman's."

A beeping tone announced that the Titans had arrived at their destination. Sure enough, the sprawling buildings and clawing skyscrapers of Gotham City stretched out before them. Robin sighed. It would have been good to come home…if circumstances hadn't been so grim.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four: No Closer to An Answer**

"Oh my God," Robin murmured when he stepped into the Batcave.

Everything was destroyed. The ruins of the Batman's most fortified and most secret sanctuary stretched out before the Teen Titans like an open wound. "What could have caused this level of damage?" Starfire wondered aloud. "Not even my people's longtime enemies had this kind of firepower."

"Hey," Cyborg called, his eyepiece glowing, "I'm picking up traces of some kind of chemical compound all over the walls and floor. It looks like C4, but C4 doesn't anywhere near this kind of payload."

Robin's jaw tightened at the news. Raven noticed. "What is it?" she asked.

"Batman was working on a new kind of derivative of C4 a few months ago," the young detective said. "The same power as C4 but using only a quarter of the material. Cyborg, calibrate your scanners for nitrogen gas deposits at twenty parts per million."

Cyborg took a moment to do so. "I'm seeing little pockets of them all over this place."

Robin nodded, his fears confirmed. He explained, "The derivative Batman was developing was supposed to make more effective blasting caps, in case we needed to destroy a wall or a vehicle in a hurry. The mechanics behind it is simple. The explosive comes in two parts, a plastique and a trinitrotoluene capsule. Put the two together and detonate. The TNT would explode first, which would set off the plastique. The combined payload would beten times greater than C4 or TNT alone. Chemical analysis of the affected area should turn up a distinct combination of C4 traces and nitrogen gas—the end products of the explosive reaction."

"So then that means the culprit somehow found out about Batman's explosives and used it against him," Raven surmised. Robin nodded. "Our enemy knows a great deal about Batman," the magus murmured.

"A very great deal," Robin agreed. "He knew where the Batcave was—under Wayne manor. That means he knows everything about Batman…and probably me, as well."

The young detective started sifting through the wreckage, turning over every shrapnel, every charred support beam. Hours passed as the Titans looked for more clues…only to come up empty once sunset came. They were sitting around in a cleared area of the Cave, when Robin, still pondering the mystery, noticed something attached to Beast Boy's boot.

"What's that?" he asked.

Beast Boy looked down. He had stepped in what appeared to be a tattered piece of cloth. The green-furred Titan plucked it off. "Looks like silk," he said upon inspection.

"It looks like it's high-grade," Raven added.

Robin took the scrap of silk and drew forth a handheld microscope/analysis device from his belt. "There's traces of dust on it…but not the same kind of dust you'd find in a cave," he announced. "This is more of the sedimentary kind. This has to be from the culprit's clothes."

"So there's a well-dressed villain out there capable of taking out the Justice League," Cyborg summarized without enthusiasm. "That isn't much to go on, Rob."

Robin was inclined to agree. If he had Batman's skill and experience, maybe he could have drawn more information from the silk. But it was useless to him as it was. The young detective walked a circuit around the Cave again, keeping his eyes peeled for any other telltale clue concerning the culprit's identity. They had gone over the place with a fine-toothed comb the first time, but Robin still held out hope that they might have missed something important.

And then it hit him, and he felt like a total fool. "The obvious place," he groaned. He rushed over to the most obvious place to leave a clue. On the Batcomputer. Though ruined beyond repair, Robin relentlessly sifted through its broken shell for any sign…and found it under the keyboard.

"A Kryptonite ring," Robin said grimly. At the other's questioning looks, he explained, "Superman knew that the only one who could possibly beat him was Batman, so he entrusted my mentor with a Kryptonite ring, just in case there was any need for Superman to be taken out for the greater good. It was the ultimate failsafe against the ultimate superhero."

"But what does this tell us, Robin?" asked Starfire in confusion.

Raven understood and, looking at her leader, she said, "It's a message, just like the note. It tells usthat Superman's been beaten and probably the rest of the Justice League, too."

"But since there haven't been any reports or newscasts about the defeat of the League," Cyborg ventured, starting to get the hang of detective work, "then that means they have to be hidden somewhere where know one knows about them being beaten."

"And the one place they could be beaten without anyone knowing," said Beast Boy excitedly, "is in outer space—the League's fortress!"

"Saddle up, team," ordered Robin. "We know where we're going next."


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five: Closing In**

"This is _real_ cool!" Beast Boy said gaily. "I've never been to outer space before!"

"Most of us haven't," Raven said dryly. "Though I trust in Starfire's experience with spaceshipsto pilot this thing."

"Your Earthling technology is cruder than what I am used to, but equal in capability to what most of my people's mass transport systems can do," said the young Tamaranian. "I'm sure I can fly this craft. It doesn't seem that complicated."

"Doesn't seem that complicated?" Cyborg repeated incredulously, stupefied by the scores of buttons, dials, and knobs on the control panel. The number of monitors and readouts alone boggled his optics. "I'd hate to see what a Tamaranian ship looks like."

Robin barely heard their banter. He was still thinking about the case. Even when the space shuttle—on loan from Cape Canaveral—started pushing the Gs, he was still turning over the various clues in his mind. Batman always said that there was a logic, no matter how twisted it may be, behind every case. The key to solving a puzzle, the Dark Knight was wont to say, was to figure out how the culprit thought.

In his days as Batman's partner, Robin had went up against the supralogical, like the Riddler, the Cluemaster, and the Clock King, and the insane and neurotic, like the Joker and Two-Face. Since joining the Teen Titans, he had more experience with more conventional minds: Slade, the HIVE, and a dozen other criminals. None of them seemed to match the style of this new enemy, this Poe-inspired mastermind. It was beginning to frustrate him. His jaw ground hard.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Raven quietly asked from where she sat beside him.

"Not right now, Raven. Thanks, though." A blip showed up on the monitors and Robin came out of his reverie. "Coming up on the Fortress of Justice," he said. "Turning on landing cycle. Looks like the fortress isn't responding to our transponder codes. The landing bay doors are still closed."

"I can take care of that," offered Cyborg, whose face components reconfigured into a vacuum-outfitted rebreather. "Just seal the airlock behind me and I'll blast it from there."

A few minutes later, the Titans had blasted their way into the landing bay. They waited a few seconds while the fortress' automatic systems sealed the hull breach with a blast door. They waited a few more seconds while the landing bay pressurized. And then they stood in the Fortress of Justice. A hauntingly silent one.

"Fan out," said Robin. "Starfire, check the command center. Cyborg, you're on engineering. Beast Boy and Raven, go through the living quarters and medical bays. I'll look around here some more." The other Titans nodded, announced their affirmation, and went their own ways. Once he was alone, Robin scanned around the landing bay. The League's shuttle wasn't around, and a quick check of a nearby terminal revealed that it had jettisoned almost nine hours ago—long after the League could have gone to the Batcave to stage a rescue and return.

Robin typed in a few commands, trying to lock on the tracking beacon he knew was hardwired into the shuttle. "It's in Greece," he murmured. Did the League go there after visiting the Batcave? Robin looked at the coordinates again and his eyes widened. The shuttle was in a part of Greece once known as Mycenae—the onetime home of Agamemnon, the main character in Euripedes' play of the same name. Agamemnon was the descendent of Atreus.

Things were clicking into place in Robin's mind. The murky mystery was growing clearer. His thoughts were interrupted by reports from his teammates.

"Cyborg reporting in. The engineering block's been completely destroyed. The fortress is running on emergency power. I'm picking up nitrogen gas deposits and C4 residues again."

"This is Beast Boy. Raven and I checked through the living quarters. Security cameras show the Justice League leaving the fortress almost twelve hours ago. Other records confirm that the League was not on board when the engineering block was hit. However, we found footage of the League returning to the fortress nine hours ago. The video feed cut out immediately, but we could still hear sounds of fighting."

"Starfire here. You guys should come up here."

The urgency in her voice was enough to assemble the Titans in the command center only minutes later. Starfire held up a note.

"What does it say?" Robin pressed.

She read, "'A sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs.'"

"What's a…." Beast Boy began.

Robin cut in, growing a bit impatient with all the digressive questioning. "It's another old term. In a Greek myth, the hero Theseus met Procrusteus, an evil man who would offer hospitality to travelers and then put them on a narrow bed that stretched their limbs until they popped out. The term 'Procrustean bed' refers to a dangerously narrow-minded or rigid point of view, as dangerous and rigid as the bed of Procrusteus."

Raven added, "The note isanother quote from the 'The Purloined Letter.' The term 'Procrustean bed' came up in reference to the Prefect of Paris, whose investigative methods, though thorough, were flawed by the fact that the Prefect only looked for the letter in the places _where he would look for them_. He didn't try to think like the thief, who hid the letter in the most obvious of places."

"You're right," Robin said. "I'd forgotten about that. That means we have to start thinking like our enemy. So the question is: where would he go?"

"These clues have been referring to Greece a lot," Raven noted.

Robin rubbed his chin in thought. "The stories of both Atreus and Agamemnon share three common elements: revenge, kinship, and location. Atreus paid Thyestes back with cannibalism. Clytemnestra took revenge on her unfaithful husband, Agamemnon. Both Atreus and Agamemnon were related within the same bloodline. Finally, the House of Atreus' homeland is Mycenae, in Greece. A tracking device on the League's shuttle shows that it's in Mycenae right now. This is no coincidence."

"Then why don't we go there already?" Cyborg asked.

"Because that's the obvious place to look," answered the young detective. "But think about it. This whole time everything's been in plain sight: both notes, the Kryptonite ring,the coordinates to the shuttle, the other clues like the security camera footage and the bomb residues. They were all pretty easy to find. All in the obvious place, if you will. The fact that we're looking at this mystery through 'The Purloined Letter' is making us think in a certain way—a Procrustean bed. We have to look at it from another angle. If we don't, we'll be walking right into this guy's hands."

"While that may give us the edge we need to figure out who's behind all this, that doesn't give us a direction," Raven said. She pointed at the note. "Everything's going to Greece, Robin. We might as well play it his way for now, even if it is a trap."

Robin reluctantly agreed. Ten minutes later, the Teen Titans wereheaded forGreece.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six: The Mastermind Revealed**

Raven had to admit, Greece was a very beautiful country this time of year. The sea breeze made her hair dance and lightened even her usually dark spirits. With her magical training, she could feel the majesty and power in this ancient land, especially among these ruins, where the Justice League's shuttle supposedly landed.

"You know how many laws we're breaking by coming here, Rob?" Cyborg complained as he gingerly made his way through the rubble, careful not to damage anything of historical significance. "If anyone finds out we were here, we're going to have every archaeology school all over us."

"So watch where you step," the young detective retorted crisply, his attention entirely on the shuttle before them. There were no signs of external damage on the ship's hull. But inside the cockpit, Robin's trained eyesight noted the subtle indications of a struggle. He pointed to the crash belts. "They're stretched," he said. "One of them is actually torn. Someone cut the League members out. Here, along the edge of the cockpit—bloodstains. Probably from where their skin scraped across the metal. More blood on the seats; they were already wounded when they got here."

"So they were beaten up on the fortress, fled here, and were still captured," Raven summarized. "But if they were fighting up in space and still got captured, that means our enemy has friends."

"Well, isn't that nice?" Beast Boy grumbled. One mastermind was bad enough; now he had help.

Robin went through the cockpit with a fine-toothed comb. "Nothing," he muttered in frustration, pounding his fist on the hull. Dust flew up into the air from his glove. He looked at the cloud in surprise and then opened his hand. It was covered in a fine layer of gray ash.

He tapped a button on the side of his mask and a pair of red lenses slid over his eyes. The readouts on his HUD brought up an unusual composition of chemicals. But Robin recognized it at once. He had seen them before. "Lazarus residues," he breathed.

He saw the others' confused looks and said, "Lazarus pools are special pools that can rejuvenate the human body. They are said to be able to restore the dead to life. They leave a distinctive ash-like residue and can drive those who bathe in the pools to temporary insanity. There's only one man Batman and I have ever faced who knew the secrets of the Lazarus pools: Ra's Al Ghul, a mastermind who's centuries old, courtesy of the pools.

"A few years ago, he kidnapped me to draw Batman into the Middle East, where he was waiting by a Lazarus pool. He left behind clues and traps, pushing Batman's skills to the limit. But it turned out to be an elaborate method of testing Batman's worthiness. What Ra's Al Ghul wanted was a suitable successor to take up his shadow empire and to marry his only daughter—he picked Batman."

"And you think Ra's Al Ghul is behind this whole…purloined superhero plot?" Raven asked. "But if he initially chose Batman, why would he be sending us these clues?"

Robin shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know why he'd want to capture the other Justice League heroes, either. The only one he'd even want is Batman. But there's only thing I've learned about Al Ghul—never underestimate him. If we think we're one step ahead of him, he's actually ten ahead of us. We're talking about a genius who's survived for generations, someone who makes Slade look like a cakewalk."

Robin shivered. Ra's Al Ghul—a mastermind's mastermind. As challenging as the Joker, as villainous as Slade, and as powerful as Batman. If Al Ghul _was_ the one behind this whole mess, then it was no wonder that he defeated the entire Justice League. The League would have been beaten days before they were even attacked—that was how good Al Ghul was, how thorough his schemes were. Robin seriously doubted his ability to solve this mystery if Al Ghul was behind it.

He felt Raven's hand squeeze his shoulder, a gesture of support, though her dark eyes hid any such emotion. Good old Raven. Robin furrowed his brow, his resolve reaffirmed. Ra's Al Ghul was one of the best, the Boy Wonder conceded, but he _could_ be beaten—Batman did it. So could he.

Again, Robin thought back on all the clues they had found, searching for anything that could give him a new insight. The two notes with Poe references linked to Greece; residues of Batman's C4 derivative; the Kryptonite ring, the Lazarus pool ashes. Most of those clues looked like they were left there on purpose. The only two that didn't fit that description were the C4 residues and the ashes. That puzzled him something fierce.

Robin thought about how he initially thought that James Gordon was supposed to be the Prefect of Paris—Robin amended that notion to himself being the Prefect, the investigator who saw things through a Procrustean bed. If he kept acting like the Prefect, then he wouldn't be able to solve the mystery. So what clue did he have that could break the cycle?

Notes, residues, the ring, ashes.

And then Robin saw it. He smiled. It was there, right there. In plain sight, just like the story. "The Lazarus ashes are a clear indication that we should go to the Middle East, where Al Ghul was last seen with a pool. But the Lazarus pools are _pools_," he said aloud. "And after taking a dip in a pool, what do you do? Dry off. Any ashes from the pool would've been removed _before_ coming out here to Greece. So why would there be ashes _here_ on the shuttle?"

Robin stood up, smiling triumphantly. "Easy—because it's where the Justice League heroes are. It's like in the story. The thief had disguised the purloined letter as a crumpled and dirty letter. But the detective noticed that the dirty letter was inconsistent with the thief's otherwise clean and meticulous habits. The disguised purloined letter—hidden in plain sight, but in such a way that it wouldn't draw attention—was incongruous with the thief's personality. That was the hint, the key to the entire puzzle."

Robin patted the ashes off his gloves. "And the same thing with the ashes. The Lazarus pools are Al Ghul's most prized secrets. He wouldn't tell anyone to go there in a million years. It isn't his style. He put those ashes there to deter us from where the Justice League really is—right here, in these ruins. Just like how disguising the letter was supposed to turn people away from where it really was—right on the desk."

Confident that he had solved the mystery, Robin sent the other Titans on a fanning search. It took several hours, but they found the missing superheroes. Sure enough, they were in the ruins: buried in the catacombs beneath a crumbling temple. There they lay, the World's Finest, battered and unconscious. The Titans undid their bindings and helped them to wakefulness.

"Robin," Batman murmured wearily. "I wasn't expecting help…this soon at any rate." The Dark Knight smiled. "Good job."

"Thanks," the young detective said. "Come on, let's get all of you out of here. We got to move before Ra's…" Robin stopped, seeing Batman's eyes narrow. "He's behind me, isn't he?" Robin grumbled.

There was applause. The Titans stood and turned to face their adversary. Ra's Al Ghul had come.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven: Case Closed**

Ra's Al Ghul had come, but not alone. Six black-shrouded minions—highly-trained assassins—flanked him, armed with scimitars.

The prospect of fighting Al Ghul was one Robin did not enjoy entertaining. The battlefield was a catacomb, close quarters. That alone was deterrent enough for even Batman to back off from a fight with Al Ghul. Ra's Al Ghul never picked a battlefield he hadn't prepared.

But there seemed no alternative to fighting. The Titans stood alone against Al Ghul and his killers, while the Justice League heroes were too weak to be of any help. Robin resigned himself to the coming confrontation. Robin advanced on Al Ghul. The other Titans went after the assassins.

"I have to admit," Al Ghul said to his young foe, "I'm rather impressed by your deductive skills. To piece together all this from the barest of clues. Your mentor would be very proud."

"It wasn't all me," Robin said. "I had help—my friends and from whoever sent the notes and the Kryptonite ring." The Boy Wonder smiled. "You see, I figured it all out. The bomb residues and the Lazarus pool ashes came from you. The residues you couldn't help; those _had_ to be left behind by virtue of the method you used to destroy the Batcave and the Fortress of Justice. But the Lazarus pool ashes…different story. You wouldn't endanger your precious pool. That's how I knew you were trying to lead us astray."

"And the other clues?" Al Ghul pressed.

"There were two people dropping clues," Robin answered confidently. "You, who were trying to throw me off the case, and one other, who was trying to keep me on it. That other is Batman. He's the only one who would know the story of 'The Purloined Letter' and know to give it to James Gordon, who would immediately contact me. Those notes we found were actually pages from a book, and I know Batman has a book of Poe short stories. I read it. The Kryptonite ring was a nice touch, too. The only one who had that ring was Batman. It was a gift from Superman. Only Batman would know about the existence of the ring."

Al Ghul applauded. "Very, very good. Truly, you are a worthy foe and a worthier partner to the world's greatest detective. But you haven't figured out why I kidnapped your friends in the first place, have you?"

Robin shrugged, admitting his ignorance.

"You'll have to figure that one out later, then." Al Ghul drew a pair of sabers from his cloak and threw one at Robin. The young detective caught it and unsheathed it. Al Ghul doffed his cloak and shirt, revealing his impressive build. Robin did the same and assumed a fighting stance. "If you wish to save your friends, you'll have to beat me and my assassins."

The young detective could feel the sweat bead on his palms beneath his gloves. In addition to being a genius, Ra's Al Ghul was also an adroit athlete and swordsman. Even Batman couldn't win a sure victory against him in a fight. And Robin was nowhere near either man's caliber with a blade. But there was no other alternative. The Boy Wonder knew he'd have to prove his namesake here and now. But knowing that only made the saber in his hand feel heavier.

He shook away the doubtful thoughts and focused on the fight. Robin saluted his foe with the blade and said with more confidence than he felt, "_En garde_."

Al Ghul went in with surprising slowness, or so it seemed to Robin. At first, the young detective thought his foe was merely testing him, gauging reflexes, probing defenses. It was standard procedure for those who relied on strategy and cunning for their fighting style. But Al Ghul wasn't testing. Those slow, languid strokes _were_ his attacks. Robin stayed on the defensive for a little longer, just to make sure these sluggish movements were indeed Al Ghul's style. And then he struck back, hard and fast.

Robin was smaller than Al Ghul, but faster. He hoped to overbear his enemy through a barrage of lightning-fast strikes. But that was when he realized his mistake. Al Ghul had tricked him into committing himself to an all-out attack. Al Ghul slipped under Robin's outstretched sword-arm and maneuvered to the young detective's exposed back. Robin felt two bloody lines gouge across his shoulders.

"You've an excellent mind, boy," Al Ghul said, "but you're swordsmanship leaves much to be desired."

"Cheap shot," Robin growled back. This time, he stayed completely on the defensive, parrying his foe's precise strokes. He was looking for a hole in Al Ghul's defenses, but none ever appeared. Then his opponent made a shocking change in tactics, bearing forward with raw brawn. Robin was taken aback by the shift in style and his defense dropped against his foe's attack. Another line appeared, this time across his cheek. Ruby-red fluid spattered across the floor.

"I don't enjoy this, boy," Al Ghul said coldly. "Taking the lives of children is for the desperate and the cowardly, neither of which I am. Surrender."

"I don't think so." Robin charged forth, yelling a war cry, seemingly devoting himself once more to the offensive. Al Ghul spat derisively and moved to meet the younger swordsman's strike with a canny block. But it was a ploy. Robin dropped the tip of his blade under Al Ghul's, circling it over and stabbing his foe in the shoulder. But the Boy Wonder wasn't finished. He released the hilt of his saber and moved into close quarters, slamming his fist into his opponent's face. He followed with a hard side-kick to the solar plexus, then an uppercut to the jaw, and finally a hard elbow strike to the collarbone.

Ra's Al Ghul fell to the ground, unconscious.

Robin looked around; the Titans were finishing off the assassins. In moments, the villains were all bound and the Justice League had regained consciousness. As the World's Finest prepared to leave with the villains in their custody, Batman pulled Robin aside to share a few words.

"You did well out there today," the Dark Knight said.

"Thanks," replied Robin. "How are you feeling?"

"Lousy," Batman said in a low monotone.

"Ha! I wouldn't have guessed. Um, seriously, though. I was worried. I mean, I saw the Batcave…."

Batman grew somber. "Yes, the Cave. It will be costly to repair it. Ra's was quite complete with its destruction. He wanted revenge for that incident when I defeated him a few years ago. When the Justice League tried to help me, Ra's beat them, too. He intended to leave us in these ruins until he could acquire the tools needed to kill some of the superbeings, Superman in particular. He left me alive only because he respected me. I'm sure any other baseline human victim would have been killed outright."

"Well, that explains his motive," Robin said. "Funny, when I first saw those quotes from that Poe story, I was sure there had been two motives. Of course, back then I thought only one person was dropping the clues. It didn't occur to me that two people were involved until later."

"The fact that you deduced that I was the other one demonstrates your maturity as a detective," Batman said with solemn gravity. "Your continued growth as a crimefighter saved me—and the League. Thank you, Robin. I am very proud of you."

Robin simply smiled.

**The End**


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